Emer Martin

Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers' Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S. in 1997. She received a BA from Hunter College in NY, where she graduated as Valedictorian in January 1998.

Her novella, Teeth Shall Be Provided was published by Canongate Press in October 1998 in Great Britain. The Pooka at Five Happiness, a short story, appeared in Shenanigans, a Sceptre collection about the European Rave phenomena, in February 1999. A Sacrificial Shoe, a short story, was published by Penguin Press in UK and Ireland as part of an anthology entitled Fortune Hotel in 1999.

She won the 1996 Audre Lorde Prize, and the 1996 Miriam Weinberg Richter Award, for work on her second novel More Bread or I'll Appear. Emer was also awarded The 1997 Mary M. Fay Poetry Award.

Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in the year 2000 to work on her third novel Baby Zero. Established in 1925, America's most prestigious fellowship is awarded annually to those who have already demonstrated outstanding promise in their field to alow them time to work on their next project. Previous recipients include Vladimir Nabokov and Phillip Roth. To find out more about Emer's, pets hobbies, favorite colors etc. you can read the interview for Female FYI magazine Oct. '97. You can also check out Emer's work as contributing editor for BLACK BOOK magazine, where, among other pieces, her Billy Bob Thornton interview was a cover story: blackbookmag.com

She began studying for her Masters in Fine Art at San Francisco State University, where, in summer of 2003, she finished work on her first film: Valley of Ghosts, a film about memory and loss in Silicone Valley. The film was screened for the first time in October 2003 at the Coppola Theatre in San Franciso State University.

She currently lives in Ireland, where she has just completed her third novel, Baby Zero, to be published soon by Brandon Publishing. She is also completing, in Dublin, her Masters in Fine Art (from San Francisco State University), and has just finished her second film, Unaccompanied. The film features Irvine Welsh as a social worker who comes across a homeless child on the streets of Dublin and whose mysterious disappearence haunts the case worker assigned to care for him.
Read more about the film at the Pooka Productions website.

In the meantime, if in Ireland, be sure to visit Emer's upcoming Art Exhibition, entitled "Butter Boots and Paper Stockings: A Tribute to Sean O'Conaill, Storyteller of Cill Rialaig". The exhibitiion opens on 18 October 2006, at the Origin Gallery, at 83 Harcourt Street in Dublin.

To e-mail Emer, click here: